When I was in high school I remember having a conversation with a friend about what we would name our children. I came up with a few names for boys that I really liked but one stood out to me as a favorite and I knew it was special, a name I really wanted to use someday. The name was Caleb Josiah. I remember one of the other names stood out as well, but not as a baby name. I wanted to marry someone named Bryan/Brian. I was not set on that, but any time I would meet a Bryan/Brian I would instinctively size him up as husband material. It was usually clear from the beginning that he was not the one.

Eventually a friend said she wanted to set me up on a blind date with her brother, Bryan. I was curious! We met and hit it off after a bit of a slow start to the relationship due to work and distance. After a few months of talking we started dating more seriously, he moved to be nearer to his sister's family which also meant closer to me.

Interestingly, he told me early on that God had already given him the name for his firstborn son. I was a bit sad about this piece of news as I really liked the name Caleb Josiah and had hoped to use that name. After knowing each other for about six months we were discussing marriage and ring shopping. We were out one night and I brought up the fact that I had actually always liked the name Bryan. I told him that it was interesting to me that I liked the name but for a husband and not for a child. I said I liked the name Caleb for a child. He looked at me and said, "What do you think of the name Caleb Josiah?" I stared at him in disbelief. Then I said, "I must have told you that name." He said, "Beth, we have never talked baby names before." So then I told him that Caleb Josiah was a name I had chosen years before for my son. He said that was the same name God had spoken to him years before we met.

Once we did the math we determined that when God spoke that name to Bryan was right around the time I had the conversation with my friend about baby names. It was 12 years later that we both finally laid eyes on Caleb Josiah, our third child, and first boy.